


The Doctor Companion

by oracular_hedgehog



Series: The Dream Life of Toby McClure [2]
Category: Doctor Who, Minecraft (Video Game)
Genre: Artificial Intelligence, Crossover, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-07
Updated: 2019-10-07
Packaged: 2020-11-27 04:07:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20942018
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oracular_hedgehog/pseuds/oracular_hedgehog
Summary: In an attempt to deal with his loneliness, Toby makes himself a timey-wimey companion.





	The Doctor Companion

“It is not good for me to be alone, so I’ve decided to make myself a companion,” Toby said.

For a moment, Jason was glad he and Toby communicated in text and that his avatar was a blocky Minecraft character with the emotional range of a shovel. It gave him a moment to experience all five stages of grief before attempting to speak. 

They’d met outside Toby’s house, and Jason pretended to be absorbed in herding an escaped chicken back into its pen before he responded. The pen was smartly designed on the side of a hill, so all Jason had to do was present the chicken with some seeds and jump down over the fence. The chicken jumped in after him, too absorbed by the promise of seeds to realize it was doing something stupid. Then it couldn’t jump out.

“And how does David Tennant feel about sharing a tiny cabin and a twin bed with you?” Jason asked.

“He does not,” Toby snapped at the same time as his companion snapped, “I am not. I’m the Doctor.”

The Doctor’s avatar was following the same design rules as Toby and Jason with the same limited range, but there was no denying who it was. Jason wasn’t sure how the Doctor communicated arrogant preening with that avatar, but he did. 

At least it was David Tennant’s doctor and not Matt Smith’s, Jason thought. Between Matt Smith’s Doctor and Toby, that much plucky enthusiasm would have turned the server into a pile of rainbows, souffles, and hot air balloons. If Toby wanted to pretend to be Rose, he at least stood a chance of having enough gravity to avoid floating off into space. The thought that Toby would probably identify more with Donna was a thought Jason refused to allow to enter his mind. 

Jason was so absorbed in digesting Toby’s news that he forgot he was still holding seeds, and he found himself standing in the middle of the chicken pen with all of the chickens looking up at him expectantly as if he was the god of all chickens come into their midst to impart some valuable piece of wisdom. He fed the seeds to one of the chickens, and the fellowship burst into chaos as the newly love-struck chicken learned the alarming truth that its personal happily ever after really was in the hands of an angry god. It shared this news immediately. Loudly. The revelation of the newly appointed prophet of poultry spread panic through the ranks of the feathery faithful.

“You can’t have the Doctor as a companion, Toby,” Jason said as he turned away from chicken Armageddon and left quietly through the gate. “The Doctor has you as a companion.”

“Not if I am… Also a Time Lord!” Toby said. 

For once, Toby’s avatar’s ridiculously broad smile seemed to actually match his mood. Jason’s avatar stood unmoving and unblinking. This was also an accurate reflection of his mood. 

“Jason?” Toby asked after several minutes passed with no reaction from Jason. 

“If you want him, he’ll be crying softly in his tiny cabin with a twin bed,” the Doctor said. 

The Doctor’s sarcasm snapped Jason out of his shock. This was no different than Toby’s decision to move into the Minecraft server. As long as he lived in the game, he was bound by the rules of the game. This meant there were limits.

“You can’t be a Time Lord,” Jason said. “You don’t have two hearts.”

“I could have two hearts,” Toby said. “All I would have to do is tweak my skin a little.”

“No, you can’t!” Jason said. “Minecraft skins are hollow. You can’t put anything inside.”

Then it was Toby’s turn to stand there, unblinking and unmoving.

“Now look,” the Doctor said. “You made him cry.”

“Minecraft avatars can’t cry,” Jason said. 

“I’m crying on the inside,” Toby said. “Apparently, some people have bigger insides than others.” 

Jason had no idea what to say, and they all stood there awkwardly until Jason remembered how much Toby enjoyed horseback riding and suggested the three of them go for a ride. Whether Toby was responding to the extended olive branch or was just that distractible with goodies Jason couldn’t tell, but it wasn’t hard to read Toby’s march toward the stables as an eager, “Yes.” 

Toby’s collection of horses was…excessive. Toby had justified it when he first started collecting horses with the argument that horses disappear after a certain amount of time if they don’t have name tags, but that was a long time ago. The pasture was more than large enough to be humane, but there were at least a few hundred horses wandering around inside, each of them named with their own name tag. As far as Jason knew, Toby was still collecting.

The doctor chose a brown and white dappled horse named Suzie. Jason chose a white and gray horse named Ginger Ale, and Toby chose a black horse named Locke. 

“Why did you name a horse after a philosopher?” Jason asked as they jumped the fence and bolted across the meadow.

“Because he was hard to catch,” Toby said.

“The real question is why you named a horse Ginger Ale. It’s not even ginger,” the doctor said, “but we were talking about Time Lords. If anyone can say if this one is a Time Lord, it’s me.” 

“And what do you say?” Jason asked. 

“There is more to being a Time Lord than two hearts and wibbly wobbly,” the Doctor said. “There’s a history, a culture.”

“All of that’s gone now, though,” Jason said. 

“Well… Yes, in the TV show,” the Doctor said, “but we’re not in TV now, are we?”

“No, we’re in Minecraft,” Jason said, “which—”

“Has absolutely nothing to say about Time Lords,” Toby said smugly, “which means we get to make up the rules?”

“I get to make up the rules,” the Doctor said, “as the only Time Lord on the, er, prairie. For now. First, we need to get you initiated.” 

“You mean, I’ll get to look into the untempered schism?” Toby asked.

The Doctor didn’t answer. He glanced at Jason with that smirking face, turned his horse toward home, and broke into a run. Toby quickly followed. 

“No,” Jason said. “Absolutely not. He’ll go mad!” but they were already out of sight.


End file.
